Tour Down Under: Another Reason for Riders to Organize

Robbie “Head-butt” McEwen maybe hasn’t won a stage yet, but he’s the picture of consistency.

3rd in the Cancer Council Classic (which is not a Prologue and doesn’t affect the Tour Down Under standings) leading up to the TDU (I just don’t feel right referring to it as “the Tour”)

3rd in Stage 1

2nd in Stage 2

and, bam, just like that (plus the luck of a pair of crashes in the final 2km of Stage 2) he’s in the Ochre (leader’s) jersey.

And I love seeing BMC’s Timothy Roe trying to pull a Jens Voigt, rocking the breaks in his first season moving up from the U23 ranks and into the elite Pro level of bike racing.

But it fookin’ pisses me off that some self-absorbed jerk, or council full of self-absorbed jerks, thought that “making’em work for it” was more important than rider safety.

The race really could not possibly have been 5 km shorter and finished in a dead straightaway, instead of forcing the sprint trains to weave through a zigzag as they’re gaining speed and jockeying for position in the lead up to the final sprint?

It’s just another example of race organizers having a complete disregard for rider safety, and it isn’t going to change until riders figure out whether or not they still the balls they were born with, or if all their years in spandex and pretty fluorescent colors have effectively castrated them.

If they DO happen to still have even a single set of nads amongst them, then they better freakin’ organize and they for damn sure better be willing to back that organization up with rider strikes (see a theme developing in recent posts?).

Where was Jonathan Vaughters and the IAPCT? Isn’t member safety on the job a normal union concern and function?